3.03.2005

My initial reaction is no. There's a reason the Founding Fathers didn't want a foreign born citizen to be able to run for President and its a fairly obvious one. A foreigner, even a naturalized foreigner, isn't the same thing as someone who was born and raised in this country. Arnold may have star power and muscles and money like nobody's business.

But he's also got almost zero political experience and what he does have has been a pretty constant stream of embarassments. He speaks glibly and off the cuff, he insults people unintentionally with his locker room machismo. He's a mysoginist.

But let's back off from Arnold for President and think about amending the Constitution to open it to pretty much anyone. What would stop someone with deep, deep pockets from becoming a citizen and then effectively buying the White House by spending a billion dollars on it? I guess there's nothing that could stop someone like Bill Gates from doing that now but there is a difference between a born American and a naturalized American. Its not bias, its reality. Born and raised here is different from came over here twenty years ago.

But I'm not overly worried about this stupid idea anymore. There was a survey on iWon the other day asking about support for Arnold's bid to have the Constitution amended just for him (which also speaks to a friggin' ego the size of Texas Austria). When I voted, the numbers were running 4-1 against amended the Constitution. But I'm sure they see that as the starting point and they will fight like rabid dogs for each percentage point they can swing to allowing him to run.

Arnold's a bad governor of California. He's a meat headed cliche-driven dumbass who eats his own foot as often as he mispronounces the name of this state. I'm embarassed to have him as our governor and hope and expect that this will be his one stop shop in politics.